Rast to become the marathon man

The Nürburgring Nordschleife is calling – and seven DTM drivers are following. The Audi contingent will be the biggest on the grid for the 46th Nürburgring 24h Race held this weekend. In addition to the four Audi drivers, René Rast, Robin Frijns, Nico Müller and Mike Rockenfeller, the Mercedes-AMG drivers Edoardo Mortara and Daniel Juncadella as well as BMW’s Augusto Farfus also will represent DTM in the race at the most beautiful and most demanding circuit in the world.

“The Nürburgring 24h Race is one of my absolute favourite events on the calendar,” said the Brazilian BMW driver. “This year I will have to cope with a new situation: a new team, new team-mates and other tyres. But I think that we are well-prepared and we will try to squeeze the maximum out of our package. It will be of major importance to have a trouble-free race. Should we succeed in realising this goal we also will secure a great result,” added Farfus who will alternate in the cockpit of the BMW M6 GT3 with Christian Krognes, Markus Palttala and Fabian Schiller.

Meanwhile, Audi’s DTM Champion René Rast will become the Marathon-Man of the weekend. Rast also will contest the WTCR (Touring Car World Cup) rounds as wild-card driver and so, the German will contest his first race of the weekend as early as on Thursday. While the second and third WTCR rounds will be held on Saturday, prior to the start of the 24h Race (15:30hrs CEST). And in the legendary endurance race, Rast will race both a Sport Team Land Audi R8 LMS and another Audi for Team WRT, together with DTM rookie Frijns.

Nico Müller contest one of the highlights of the 2018 endurance racing season both for Phoenix and for Mücke Audi – in the latter car together with Mike Rockenfeller. Last year, with just 90 more minutes to go, Müller and Rast as well as Marcel Fässler and Frijns seemed to be on the way to win the race with their Audi R8 LMS for Audi Sport Team WRT – but following dramatic closing stages they had to settle for finishing third, in the end.

Mortara and Juncadella also will jointly contest the Eifel classic. The two Mercedes-AMG works drivers will race a Mercedes-AMG GT3 for HTP Motorsport. More than 30 GT3 vehicles will battle it out in the Eifel for the win in the prestigious event and even the number of top favourites amounts to more than a dozen cars.